Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. The Kriegsmarine was formed by Adolf Hitler in violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, with the navy being bolstered during the 1930s in the Interwar Period. In 1943, it had a strength of 649,000 troops, and Karl Doenitz and Erich Raeder served as its commanders during World War II, when its U-boats unleashed destruction against the Allied Powers' navies during the Battle of the Atlantic. Early in the war, its surface fleet was destroyed, but its U-boats continued to operate until 1945. Many of its captured ships would be used by the Allies for target practice, and the German navy was dismantled.